Serene on the surface, seething with desire beneath, Alain Guiraudie’s French thriller Misericordia is fascinatingly strange, creepy, and suspenseful.
Much as the filmmaker’s masterful 2013 thriller Stranger by the Lake planted a sinister seed by setting a serial killer loose in a tranquil outdoor gay cruising spot, here Guiraudie upends a seemingly wholesome homecoming in the countryside with dark undercurrents of sex and violence.
Although, beyond a couple of pointed shots of male nudity and one shot of bleeding, there’s little sex or violence onscreen. Merely the potential for the former and the threat of the latter linger equally over nearly every scene in this odd chamber piece set in a remote village tucked amid the forested hills of Occitanie in Southern France.
Jérémie, portrayed with an intense gaze by Félix Kysyl, returns to his home village from the city for the funeral of his former boss, the town’s devoted baker, who was like a father to him. He’s welcomed with an open heart by the baker’s widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), and received much less warmly by her adult son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand).
Hints of a brotherly rivalry clearly run deeper, certainly for Vincent, who eyes Jérémie with suspicion from the moment he sees him. Suspicion shifts to outright aggression after Jérémie decides to stay in town for a while in the home of Martine. She’s happy to have Jérémie’s company. He’s out of work back in Toulouse, and, hey, maybe he’ll take over the bakery. None of this pleases Vincent.
Jérémie is also eager to rekindle a friendship with Walter (David Ayala), who happens to be Vincent’s best friend, and to whom Jérémie seems inexplicably attracted. Ayala is especially effective portraying slobbish Walter’s utter confusion over Jérémie’s ardent interest.
Little does Walter know, but inexplicable attraction runs rampant through these hills. Even sly, elderly priest Philippe, played by Jacques Develay in the film’s most complex performance, can’t deny desire. But, of course, desires will be thwarted. Resentments fester, aggression escalates, and someone in this tiny town goes missing.
As suggested by the title, which means “mercy” or “compassion” in Latin, Guiraudie doesn’t just escalate to homicidal intentions but also explores ensuing acts of compassion. Throughout, the script and direction maintain an air of quiet dread, aided by both the commanding presence of Kysyl — serving the unnerving vibe of a young, handsomer Klaus Kinski — and the isolated, pastoral setting.
These verdant woods, brilliantly shot by Stranger by the Lake cinematographer Claire Mathon, are abundant in varieties of morels and mushrooms. So, tromping through the woods is a town pastime, leading many of the movie’s characters searching through the morning mist that clouds the forest. Some go to escape, others to hunt, and not just for mushrooms.
Guiraudie gets maximum mileage out of the photogenic fungi, which, as it turns out, grow extremely well in the soil over a hastily buried body, a dead giveaway to murder perhaps. Ultimately, the local gendarmerie gets involved in the form of an inspector (Sébastien Faglain) and his steady assistant (Salomé Lopes).
Faglain’s droll deadpan performance as the incredibly persistent, slightly insouciant investigator helps bring the movie home with an unexpected comedic twist, which might be the most inexplicable desire of all, but it works.
Misericordia (★★★★☆) is unrated and playing in select theaters, including Alamo Drafthouse Bryant Street, 630 Rhode Island Ave. NE in Washington, D.C. Visit www.fandango.com.
Before it veers into a gay cautionary tale, Tadeo Pestaña Caro's stylishly low-key A Few Feet Away maintains an effortless neutrality about the sex and dating exploits of its soft-spoken hero Santiago.
Just twenty years old, Santiago is an architecture student fairly new to Buenos Aires, a fresh, cute twink from the province still gaining his footing in the city. That telling detail, revealed during Santi's first hookup in the film, partly explains why he relies on the dating app Grindr for making new friends.
That does not explain why Santiago simply can't stay off Grindr. He becomes practically consumed with scrolling through faceless, nameless profiles, in desperate search of who knows what exactly. Hiding behind his profile name "Seth," he's not just after sex, it seems, and he's not looking for love, as far as we're led to believe.
“I hope to one day make a movie musical,” says Tina Romero. “I would love to do a fantasy piece. I am trying to put all the pots on the burner and see which one I can get to boil. Because it's a miracle to make a movie, and it's a miracle to get all the pieces in place. But I am salivating to make another one.”
For now, the LGBTQ world — and beyond — is salivating to see Romero’s debut effort, Queens of the Dead, a vibrant, unapologetically queer take on the zombie genre her late father turned into a horror institution.
Made in 1968, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead remains a truly terrifying game-changer in horror. It’s the film all others bow down to, replete with classic lines (“They’re coming to get you, Barbara”) and gruesome depictions of zombies feeding on human viscera. Both Night and its 1978 follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, formed the first two parts of a trilogy that spawned dozens of imitators, remakes, and even a second trilogy from George himself.
The placid romantic drama Sauna, from director Mathias Broe, confronts provocative subject matter with admirable sensitivity and restraint. Based on the novel by Mads Ananda Lodahl, published in 2021, the film, figuratively speaking, never raises its voice telling the story of Johan (Magnus Juhl Andersen) and William (Nina Rask), a cis gay man and trans man, respectively, whose budding romance faces distinct challenges, even within the queer community.
First, the film winds through a concise, if not that creative setup depicting Johan's lonely life. A small town single gay relatively new to Copenhagen, he's sociable and outgoing, and so far unfulfilled by the cold, hard sex sessions with random guys he meets at bars.
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